


Strike

by lilacsloth



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1980s UK miners strike, Alternate Universe - Muggle, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:27:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25593529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsloth/pseuds/lilacsloth
Summary: Remus Lupin was a miner. He belonged there, in the mines, in the valleys of south Wales. He might not fit, not quite, but he never doubted that was where he belonged. At least until Thatcher and the Coal Board threaten his way of life, and a man by the name of Sirius Black shows up to challenge everything he thought he knew.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is broadly based on the real-life 1984-5 miner’s strike in the UK, including south Wales, and the real-life organisation Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. I try to be as historically accurate as I can, though the village Remus lives in is made up, and no real people are used as anything other than referenced characters.
> 
> I can highly recommend the film Pride if you want to know more about this part of history.
> 
> Content warnings through much of the story for homophobic language, including homophobic language used by gay characters about themselves. I try to keep this to an absolute minimum, but our characters are products of what they’ve been through.

Dusk was falling as the rickety old van spluttered down the mountain road into the village of Cwmgoed, a plume of dirty smoke following on behind. Remus Lupin sat a row from the back, his cap pulled low over his face and his placard wedged between his knees. The seats on the van were far too small for him, and so Remus’ knees felt like they were almost up to his ears. Next to him, little Peter Pettigrew slept with his head pressed into the window. In front, one of the Williams twins argued with Peter Jones about football, the only noise on the otherwise silent van as it made it’s way through the valley from the pit. Usually, before the strike, there’d have been a song, or someone getting the mick taken out of them for something, or anything other than this silence. Not today. Not almost four months into this strike.

“Alright,” said Dai, the driver, as they pulled into the village. “I’m dropping off at the Institute. Got more to go back and get, I don’t have time for taking you all to your doors, do I?”

Remus prodded Peter awake. 

The Institute was bustling as they peeled out of the doors of the van, the engine still running as, if it was turned completely off, the thing would take half an hour to start again. The doors to the Miners Institute opened, and half the miners off the bus disappeared the moment they saw their mum, wife, girlfriend, whoever. Even Peter was greeted by his mum and his fiancee. Remus, the only one without someone there, trudged across the road by himself and into the main hall of the Institute. The Women Against Pit Closures meeting would be finished, by then, and if he was lucky, Lily would still be here, which gave Remus an excuse not to go home, not quite yet. She’d have something useful he could do here.

Inside, Brenda and Dilys were holding fort in the kitchen, their voices coming through the serving hatch between the kitchen and the hall as they made sandwiches. And, luckily, Lily was still there, her ginger hair pulled back into a plait as she sorted through a pile of boxes in the corner, beside the raised area that passed as a stage. She looked up as Remus came in and grinned.

“Get over here,” she said, by way of a greeting. “Could do with a nice strong bloke like you.”

“I’ve been on the picket all day,” Remus said, already on his way. “Last thing I want to be doing is hauling boxes.”

“Oh, come on. This is just as important to the strike as standing on the picket line, you know. Without this, half the village won’t be eating tomorrow.”

“Fine.” Remus gave in, as always, and stowed his placard and his tatty, slightly dusty sports jacket on a chair by the door. It hadn’t rained in weeks, and the usually green Welsh valleys had turned to dust, coating him every day instead of the thin film of coal he was used to. “What do you need me to do?”

“Sort the soup,” she said, prodding a box with her toe. “Three tins a box, we’re getting. Try and mix it up a bit. And do a few with no mushroom, always get complaints if some people get mushroom.”

“Alright.”

They worked in silence for a few minutes, Remus lining the tins of soup into groups of three on a table, and Lily opening boxes and scribbling on a clipboard.

“The Pryces got their gas cut off today,” she said, by way of conversation. “Megan Brown came in to tell us at lunchtime. That’s the third family this week.”

“Wish I was surprised,” Remus replied. “Fucking Thatcher.”

“Not just Thatcher,” said Lily, thumping a box down onto the table with force. “It’s the whole bloody lot of the Tories. She’d not be there if they didn’t all agree with her. Anyway, we should be able to get it back on, look.” She pulled a sheet of paper down from the wall and brandished it at Remus, moving it too fast for him to see the words.

“What’s that?”

“Good news, that’s what this is,” said Lily. “There’s a group coming down from London tomorrow, they’ve raised some money for us. About five hundred quid, someone said. Enough to get the Pryces gas back on, and the others, and fix the other van, and have some in the bank for next time.” She slapped the paper down on the table, finally allowing Remus to read it.

“Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners.”

“Yeah. That’s them.”

“We don’t need their help,” Remus muttered. Lily raised an eyebrow. “We don’t,” he said again. “If we needed help from their lot we’d have asked, and we didn’t.”

“Remus Lupin, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were being a, what is it, a homophobe.”

“It isn’t that they’re gay.” Of course it wasn’t. “Just don’t need them, with all their money, shipping in from London to tell us how to do things.”

“They’re not. They’ve got donations.” Lily hauled a box of tins up onto the table. “Same as the Women’s Institute from Cardiff did last week. You didn’t say anything then.”

“Maybe I did. Maybe you didn’t hear me.”

She sighed. “Well, don’t be Petunia, that’s all I’m saying.” Lily sighed again, as she started sorting the tins into piles on the tabletop. Remus found the pile of empty boxes under the next table along, and began to slot them in. “She’s a homophobe if I ever saw one. Says she doesn’t know what Vernon will say. Vernon’s not a part of this, and the opinion of some bloody fancy man from Swansea doesn’t matter.” 

“I do,” Remus said, trying not to sound bitter. “It’ll rhyme with ducking daggot.” Like his dad had said. 

“Oh God,” Lily said, and dropped a tin onto the floor. “That’s why, isn’t it?”

“Nothing’s why. I explained why.” Remus didn’t want to go into it. But Lily Evans had never let go of a topic she’d stuck onto, and here he would be, having that discussion. “I’m not talking about it in here,” he added, quietly. Lily mimed putting a finger over her mouth.

“Alright,” she said. “Later.”

“Glad you’re taking that down,” said Brenda, stalking through the doors from the kitchen. “No need for them to come here, there isn’t. Unnatural.”

Lily glared at Brenda and shoved it back up onto the wall with the help of as many pins as she could see, maintaining eye contact with the older woman the entire time.

And, unfortunately, Remus was proved right. Lily didn’t let go of the issue. Instead, she was waiting outside the hall when he left for the evening, hiding in amongst the huge wooly jumper she wore over her dress, clearly not going to take ‘not talking about this’ for an answer. 

“I fancy a walk,” she said. “Coming?”

“Fine,” he said. 

They walked up the road, past Lily’s street and then past Remus’, Remus slouching along with his hands in his jeans. It was threatening to rain, finally, the clouds barely visible but still looming in the dark of the sky. As soon as they reached the edge of the village, and the quiet of the road that wove its way up to the pit itself, Lily spun around, making Remus stop in his tracks.

“You’re like them, aren’t you?” she said. “Gay, I mean. Into boys.”

“Does it matter?”

“Well, no. Not to me. But I’m your friend. You can tell me the truth.”

“Yeah. I am.” He had thought it might feel a relief to get the truth out there, just to Lily. It didn’t. It felt worse. “But you can’t tell anyone. You know what they’re saying in the village. You heard Brenda.”

“I have to hear it from Petunia.” Lily wrinkled her nose with distaste. “Well, I think they’re talking rubbish. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them. There’s nothing wrong with you. Don’t you dare believe any of the rubbish she comes out with."

“I won’t.” He will. And it isn’t just Petunia. It isn’t just Brenda.

“Guess we’re not getting engaged after all, then,” she added, with a grin.

“What?” 

“Oh, Rebecca Watkins told me, because she’d heard it from Sally Quantrell, that you’re going to propose to me. By the end of the month, Sally reckoned.” Lily stuck her tongue out and started walking again, in the direction of the village. “I guess I shouldn’t get Mum to book the church after all.”

“You didn’t - “ Remus began, “you weren’t -“

“No, of course not! Absolutely no offence meant, but I don’t fancy you, Remus Lupin. I’m holding out for someone a little less gay, thanks.”

“I don’t fancy you, either. I mean, I wouldn’t, but, shit.” Remus could feel his face going red, as if he wasn’t embarrassed enough already. “There’s nothing wrong with you or anything.”

Lily laughed. “Yeah, don’t worry. I know. We’ll both find our perfect boy.” 

They passed the village sign, again, and the houses came into clearer view, more than just lights and stones in the distance. Remus felt more than a little bit reluctant to just walk back in. Especially now he’d told Lily. What if she said something?

“You can’t tell anyone,” he said, stopping again. She had to understand that. “You saw Brenda. That’s what they’ll say about me if they know. The boys won’t want me in the van with them.” His father.

“The Women’s committee voted to let gays from London come to the village, and Alastor Moody from the union too. He wouldn’t let anyone say anything to you.”

“Not in front of him, no. But he’s not got any control over the rest of the time. And, besides, gays coming up from London’s one thing, and someone from here being, you know, is another.” 

“Things are changing,” said Lily, with all the confidence of someone whose life this didn’t bloody affect. “People accept it more now. There’ll be a few idiots, but the village will come round. Besides, you can’t be the only one.”

But, Remus thought, there was no use being one of many if you were the only one anyone knew about, and once the rest of them had seen how much of a target he was, they’d never come forwards. He started walking again, trudging down the last part of the dark road before they reached the first house of the village. Lily followed, half a pace behind.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she promised. “You know I won’t.”

“Yeah. I know.”

They walked in silence through the village, past Remus’ aunt’s house, noisy with the sound of her shouting her children into bed, past the church, silent in the night, lights on only at the vicarage beside it, and then on past the end of Remus’ road, up to where Lily lived. Like always, they turned down that road, Remus walking Lily to her door. It wasn’t that he didn’t think she was safe in the village, here where both of them had lived since they’d been born in the Miner’s Hospital in the town twenty minutes away. Nobody would bother her here, not even Snape, the boy who lived down Spinner’s End and was half obsessed with her, because it wasn’t like that here. Nobody would hurt a girl from the village, walking alone.

“See you tomorrow?” Lily asked, outside the blue-painted front door of her mid-terrace house. Behind net curtains, the outline of her parents was visible in the sitting room, watching something on the telly. “I’m going to be up at the Institute packing boxes all day.”

“I’ll be on the bus out at dawn. Maybe afterwards.”

“I’m not going to tell a soul.”

Remus forced a smile. “Good.”

“And so you’ll be at the Institute when they arrive?”

He wasn’t planning to be. It was one thing to have admitted, well, that to Lily, this evening, and another entirely to go this event. He wasn’t a homophobe. Remus didn’t care what these boys from London got up to on their own time, and he’d be grateful for the money for the strike fund, of course he’d be, but he couldn’t sit there in a room with them. 

“Maybe.”

“Come on. Go. It’ll be fun. Martin’s band’s playing again.” She put her hand on the handle, ready to open the front door, then paused. “For me?”

“For my soon-to-be-fiancee.”

“Shh! Mum and dad might hear! Then the church’ll really be booked, you know, they approve of you. Mum tried to talk me into it.”

“Good luck to her,” Remus said, turning to leave. “Goodnight, Lily.”

“Goodnight, Remus.”

He wasn’t going to the event tomorrow. He’d fake being ill if he had to, a cold picked up off the picket line in the morning. He’d dig what he could out of the money he got from the union, and he’d stick a bit extra in the buckets the next time he went down there, but there was no way anyone was getting him into the Institute tomorrow night. Not to sit through that.


	2. Chapter 2

The hall in the Cwmgoed Miners’ Institute had seen better days. The off-white walls were scuffed and marked, in need of a new coat of paint, and the wood trim was chipped in more places than Remus could count. Three of the chips were indirectly his fault. Martin, one of the union officials, was setting up his band on the stage, a carefully constructed mass of chipboard and fancier woods along a wall next to the bar. On any Friday night, half or more of the village would be here, grouped at round tables and clustered at the bar, sorted by age, with children darting between the tables and out through the doors to the grass at the side on a warmer night.

Remus hung towards the back of the hall, hidden as best he could in a small knot of the miners his own age. Peter Pettigrew, with his knack for a story, was entertaining half the group with a long tale about his mother, his fiancee, and Dai Owen’s goat, and normally, Remus would have been laughing along with the rest of them. He’d heard it before, but that never really mattered with Pete’s stories. The other half played cards for cigarettes, and Remus had never had a head for cards. He sat between the two groups with his beer, listening to the story, if anyone had asked. Avoiding Lily.

He’d caught sight of her a couple of times since she’d dragged him in here, both of them from a distance while she bustled around getting the place ready for their guests. If she hadn’t made sure to make eye contact with him, making sure he knew she was watching, he’d have left. Alastor hadn’t believed his tale of a bad cold, and neither had Lily. Nor did Peter, for all that, but Peter didn’t get to tell Remus what to do. 

He was well into his second pint, and Pete was onto a different story, one about Jack Peters and a girl from up Llannydd that Remus had heard several times, when the doors opened and the room went silent. In through the double doors from the kitchen trailed an awkward looking group, led by Alastor Moody and a bloke with a knitted hat pulled down over his hair. Lily was there, at the side of it, her hair easily spottable, next to a boy who was the most beautiful man Remus had ever seen. He wore a leather jacket and blue jeans, his long hair had a slight curl, and Remus could have sworn that the boy was looking directly at him. Remus looked at the remains of his pint.

“Now, I know that some of you weren’t keen on this idea,” began Alastor, but before he could finish his speech, there was a screech of a chair being pushed back across the floor and Remus saw his dad stand up.

“I’m not staying to listen to this,” he said, venom in his voice. “They leave, or I leave.”

“Now, Lyall,” started Alastor, and next to Lyall, Remus’ mother put a hand on his arm. It wouldn’t do anything. Hope’s attempts to calm him down never went anywhere.

“No,” said Lyall, shaking off his wife’s hand. “I’m not staying. I’ve not come here to have my drink ruined by a bunch of poofs.” The chair tipped backwards onto the floor with a crash as Lyall began his stalk towards the exit. “Unnatural, it is.” He hadn’t had to have come at all. Nobody had forced him. He’d have known they’d be here, everyone in the village had known what was going on.

“Lyall!” Hope started her own exit from the room, running in the wake of her husband. As he wrenched the doors open, a handful of others stood up too, including Lily's sister Petunia and her gaggle of friends, Mrs Brown who ran the butchers, a couple from the group Remus was sitting with. Maybe twenty all told, or twenty-five. 

"You going?” Pete asked, his round face squashed with worry. 

Remus took a deep breath. “Can't see why I need to ruin my drink over it,” he answered, trying to keep his face straight and his hand steady.

“Yeah. Me too,” Pete replied. He was staring at them as he spoke, but Peter didn’t have anything to lose. “So long as they don’t try anything on with us, right?”

Remus didn't answer. It was safer not to answer. Instead, he chanced a look at the newcomers, clustered around Alastor. The beautiful boy was watching the progress of the villagers out the door, a look of shock on his face. Remus felt like laughing. Hardly like he hadn’t predicted this, was it? They should have known this is the sort of reaction they’d have got. They must have known. He, the boy, now looked like he was going to punch something. The bloke next to it, the tall one with the hat, elbowed him. They were together, Remus decided, with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Had to be.

“Well, good riddance,” said Alastor, as the door clanged shut between the last of those who had left. By Remus’ count, about a third of the room had gone, and a further third were uneasy, their eyes flitting between the group of gays, the door, and the other Welshmen, as if they regretted their decision to stay already. “Anyone else got a problem, off you trot. I won’t hold it against you, but if you start anything in here, you'll find yourself out on your arse, won’t you now?”

Six more men from various parts of the room got up and made their way to the door at Alastor’s words, including Jack Allerton. Remus felt a stab in his gut at that. They'd been working on the same part of the pit for two years, before the strike - Remus had considered him a friend. Still could be. Jack didn’t need to know anything about Remus that he didn’t already. Nothing was going to change because of this.

“Alright,” said Alastor. "Now we should be able to get on with this. Here’s a group from the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, they’ve come up to give us the money they’ve raised. Five hundred and eighty two pounds, and fifty one pence.” With a last glare around the room, Alastor turned to the group behind him. “Now. Who’ll be giving the speech?”

Remus didn’t pay attention to the speech, because the boy with the leather jacket was looking straight at him again, and had smiled.

He wasn’t stupid enough to try and approach the boy, though. Blokes like him were better appreciated from a distance. They couldn’t reject you there, or cause trouble for you, or tell your dad anything about what you’d been trying to get up to. So Remus stayed at his table, aside from the occasional trip up to the bar, and he even managed to laugh at one of Pete’s stories, even though he’d heard that one before, as well. If he kept his back to the rest of the hall, he could almost pretend it was a normal night.

“Alright?” asked Lily, sliding into the seat recently vacated by Pete, who’d gone to the bar. “It’s going as well as we could have hoped for, isn’t it?” She looked Remus over and didn’t give him a chance to speak before continuing. “I mean, Petunia was always going to take it like that, and I can’t say I’m surprised about your dad, either, but more than half have stayed. That’s something.”

Remus turned to look around the room. By now, it looked like it was a little less than half, with more of the miners and their families having taken the opportunity to sneak out quietly, rather than making a big scene at the beginning. That, and most of the people were sitting like he and his friends were, around the edges of the room, deliberately ignoring what was going on at the front. Only a handful of people were directly interacting with the visitors up from London, most of them being members of the committee who’d invited them.

“Yeah. Looks like a success.” This was still better than Remus had thought it’d go.

“Don’t let your dad give you shit for staying,” Lily advised. 

“I’m not even talking to them.”

“No. And I wouldn’t tell your dad if you did, you know.”

Remus glanced around the room again. She wouldn’t, but he could pick at least ten people at a first sweep of the hall who would. Maureen Jones would be down there telling his mum within ten minutes, he was certain of it, because she’d pass gossip about anyone. 

“I’m here, aren’t I? Isn’t that enough of a show of support?”

‘It’s enough for me, yeah. Isn’t all about me, though, is it?”

“I’m not talking to them,” Remus said, firmly.

“And I’m not going to make you.” She swung herself back off the chair as Pete approached with a pair of pints. “I’m suggesting you think about it, aren’t I?”

“Yeah. Alright.” He wasn’t going to. 

Lily reappeared occasionally, each time trying to get him to come over to where she was sitting, or at least say hello to one of them. Remus refused. He was going to stay here, or between here and the bar, at least. The closest he got was standing next to a couple of them while he was at the bar. He smiled back when they smiled at him, but he kept his eyes on the bar the rest of the time.

But after the fifth pint, and after Peter had got himself embroiled in a card game that Remus had no interest in, he needed some air. He left the hall and went out onto the back alley behind the Institute. There was nobody there but a handful of the older miners, finishing up a cigarette, who nodded to Remus before going back inside. Remus took a deep breath.

He had about a minute’s peace before the doors clattered open again. Assuming it’d be Lily, here to tell him what to do again, Remus turned around and made for the doorway, crashing straight into the tall, leather jacketed boy that’d been staring at him half the night. He smelt of beer and cigarettes, and Remus’ stomach swooped. He pushed himself away, muttering apologies.

“Fucking hell,” said the boy. “Throwing yourself at me, are you?”

“No.” Having retreated to a safe distance across the concrete, Remus fluffed his hair up and tried to look like he didn’t care. “You were in the way.”

“Sirius Black,” the boy said, sticking out a hand. “You are?” His voice had the remains of a posh London accent, but he spoke like he was trying to squash that out of it. His grey eyes stayed fixed on Remus, watching his every move, trying him on for size. 

“Remus Lupin.” Feeling it’d be rude to do anything else, Remus took the boy’s, Sirius’, hand, and shook it, dropping it like a hot potato after what he hoped was long enough. He stepped back quickly. He wanted to grab the other boy and snog him, but he wasn’t going to. He couldn’t. Except for a lot of looking, which could’ve meant anything, there was nothing to say this boy liked him. Not like that, anyway. And there was a lot to say that someone would see it, and then what’d happen?

“You’re one of the miners.”

“Yeah.”

They stood awkwardly for a minute, and Sirius fished a packet of tobacco out his pocket and began rolling himself a cigarette.

“Smoke?”

“No. Don’t smoke.” Remus tried to smile, but he wasn’t sure it had come off right. “Enough shit in my lungs as it is.”

“Wise.” More silence, as Sirius stuck the cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He lent up against the dark wall of the Institute, one boot against the stone, looking like he belonged here somehow. But, Remus reminded himself, he didn’t. People like him didn’t belong here. “So you live here?”

“Yeah. All my life.”

“Your dad was one of the ones who left, wasn’t he?”

“What’s that any of your business for?”

The boy grinned. “It isn’t. But my mate, James, you know, with the hat, he was chatting to your friend Lily, who mentioned that her sister and her friend’s dad had both left. Well, looked at you as she said it, and she kept talking to you all night, so, therefore, her friend.”

Mate. He’d referred to James, the hat boy, as his mate. Not boyfriend or whatever it was he’d use to describe him if they were together. Remus’ stomach did a flip. He tried to look as though he hadn’t noticed anything about those words.

“We’re friends.” What Remus wanted to ask was why Sirius Black had been watching him enough to know that Lily has kept on talking to him. That, and why Sirius had asked if they were seeing each other. 

“Yeah, thought as much.” Sirius pushed his hair out his eyes. “Sorry that your dad’s a twat.”

“He’s not. He’s just not used to this sort of thing. It’s not like London,” Remus said, automatically. “Dad’s not - he’s never had to understand gay people before.” Only some of which was the truth. 

“There’s what, four hundred odd of you here? I’d be prepared to bet my jacket there’s at least ten of you that’re gay.” He tugged the zip of his jacket to make his point. “Maybe more. I dunno. James claims one in five are gay.”

“That’s not right.”

“Well, I failed my maths O level, so who knows.” 

Remus had an A on his GCE, but he didn’t think, somehow, that being good at maths was what mattered here. He didn’t know anything about this sort of thing. Sirius might do, and, besides, he’d been to the sort of school where the kids did O levels. 

Not that he looked like he cared he’d failed. He grinned with the look of someone who thought school was a joke, like most the boys in Remus’ school had. None of them had ever looked at Remus like that, though. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Sirius knew he was, well, not interested in girls. Like he knew everything there was to know about Remus, after meeting him for five minutes.

“I think I’d know,” Remus said, and regretted it immediately. That had been far too close to giving himself away. He knew what his father would say if he could even see him standing here, talking to one of the gays, and he knew what the rest of the village would say. He’d seen the look in little Simon’s eyes as he’d left. He’d seen the way Lily’s sister had walked out. And it’d be worse, for him, because he was one of them. 

So no matter what he wanted to say, he’d say nothing. Because Sirius Black didn’t know him at all.

“Yeah? Good on you. I tried to hit on five different straight boys the last month alone. Why’s it all the pretty ones are straight, ey?”

“No idea.”

“Nah. Guess you wouldn’t.” Sirius grinned and brushed his hair out his face again. Remus wanted to stroke it. “No gays here.”

“I’m just saying, it’s not like where you are. People just aren’t gay here. Not like London. It’s different there.”

“Is it? My parents chucked me out.”

“What?” 

“Yeah. Said I was a stain on the family, a disgrace, disgusting pervert, you know, all the rest of it. Mother had quite a lot to say about it, let me tell you. And, besides,” he said, gesturing widely back at the hall, the lights visible clearly behind them in the growing darkness, “most the rest of them have got a similar story. A few have their parents in their lives, but most of us, it’s a terse phone call at Christmas at the best. Scars at the worst.”

“The one in that hat, James, his parents are okay with him, aren’t they? I heard him talking about his mum. When he was at the bar.”

Sirius laughed, a short, sharp laugh that sent a jolt of something right through Remus.

“Oh, bloody hell, James isn’t gay. His dad’s brother was gay. So they took me in when I got chucked out, because they didn’t want to see me stuck in a squat or something worse. Like what happened to Uncle Raymond.”

“But I thought -“

“You thought James must be one of us, because he goes around with a bunch of poofs?”

“Yeah,” Remus admitted, and Sirius laughed again. 

“Makes sense, if you don’t know him. Nah, he’s as straight as they come. Declares love for a different unsuitable girl every month. Most of them are lesbians.” Sirius grinned, reaching a hand up to scratch the back of his neck, and the jolt went through Remus again. “Probably need to find him some straight friends, but there’s always something more important to get around to.”

“Saving the miners.”

“Yeah. That.” He took a drag of his cigarette. Remus watched the progress of his hands, soft hands, which didn’t look like they’d seen a mine in their lives. He wondered what they’d feel like in his hands. “So you actually go in them? The mines?”

“Yeah. Five generations of miners, we are, on both my mam and my dad’s sides. I started in the mine at sixteen, when I left school.”

“Fuck. So that’s, what, eight years?”

“Almost. Would have been eight years this month if we hadn’t gone out on strike.”

Sirius let out a low whistle. “I couldn’t do it,” he said. 

“You’d be able to if you’d been born here. It’s that or leaving, unless you’ve got a family trade, butcher or whatever. Most of us just sign up to the mine, if there’s work for us.”

“There’s got to be other options, though.”  
“Yeah. There is. Leaving.” Without either of them saying anything about it, they started walking, away from the Institute behind them and through the village. Remus ducked his head as they passed the end of his street, just in case his father saw anything. “You don’t get it,” he said, after they’d passed. “Without the pit, we don’t have anything. There’s nothing else around here for miles, not where we can work, not where there won’t be unemployed miners from miles around going for the same jobs. And I couldn’t do anything else. My dad couldn’t have done anything else. It’s what we do.”

“You’re twenty-four. You could learn something else.”

Remus stopped. “Thought you supported us.”

“I do.” Sirius stopped too, twisting to face Remus. They stood like that for a moment, both of them staring the other one down, before Remus made to speak.

“Then maybe we don’t want to. Maybe we want to work in the mines. Maybe I like it.” As soon as he said it, it sounded wrong, too much, but he didn’t have a way to take it back. 

“I’m raising money so you can stay on strike. Stay in the mines if you want. I’m just saying, you sound clever, you talk like you’re clever, anyway. You seem like you could do anything if you wanted to. You’ve got options, that’s what I’m trying to say.” Sirius stuck his hands in his pockets, mirroring Remus. 

“I haven’t,” Remus snapped. It was a little bit of an unfair reaction, but then, Sirius wasn’t listening. He didn’t get it. “If I want my life, if I want my family, then I stay here. I’m a miner. I’ve got four GCEs. I’m not exactly good at anything else. You don’t understand.”

“I’ve got an O level in Woodwork.” Sirius twisted to walk backwards down the street, his eyes on Remus the entire time. Without anything better to do, Remus followed. “Nothing else, because I failed the rest. Mostly on purpose. My family’s aristocracy. Could’ve had a title and a seat in the House of Lords once my father dies. Maybe a lesser one in my own right while I wait, if I tried for it. I went to Eton, you know, before I got kicked out for shenanigans with a lad from the town. Even a gilded cage means shit if it’s a cage, doesn’t it?”

He kicked a stone, which skimmed down the cobbles on the road with a clatter. Remus, almost out of panic, checked the windows. Nobody’s curtains twitched. 

“I’m good at almost nothing, unless you count meeting unsuitable boys and annoying the police. Well, James reckons I must be good at something else, but if I am I haven’t found it yet. I’ve never had a job longer than six months. All intents and purposes, I’m a useless gay toff.”

“You’re not,” said Remus. How could he be? 

“Yeah? I don’t know shit about being a miner, or being Welsh, or living halfway up a mountain in some town where everyone knows my name. And you don’t know shit about being a fucking unnatural poofter.”

“Don’t say that,” said Remus, halfway to reaching out a hand to stop Sirius, grab him by the arm and get him to stop talking. Kiss him or punch him, maybe. Both seemed like they might work. Both seemed like they’d be a terrible idea. “You shouldn’t say things like that about yourself. You shouldn’t.”

Sirius flipped back to walking forwards, alongside Remus. 

“Yeah?” said Sirius. “That’s not as bad as I’ve heard, trust me.” He’d sounded cocky before, completely in charge of what he was saying, just trying to wind Remus up with words maybe. Now, he sounded just dejected. Like he believed everything that’d been said about him. Remus would’ve been prepared to bet at least a fiver that it was his mother who’d said most that shit, even though he could admit he knew nothing about this boy and his life.m

“Whoever said that to you is a shit.”

Sirius laughed, but this laugh was nothing like his other ones. This one was lower, darker, somehow, and the laugh of someone who didn’t believe a word of what he’d just been told. 

“Easier said than done though, isn’t it? Could apply that to whoever around here would give you shit for being gay.”

“I’m not,” said Remus, quickly. Too quickly. 

“You as in the generic you. Whoever. The gays in the village, of which there are some.”

“If there are some.”

They’d almost reached Church Street, which was usually busy at this time of night. At number four, Mrs Quantrell was almost always in her doorway, she’d knit sitting on the step most nights, waiting for the gossip because she could no longer walk as far as the Institute. At number seven, Mrs Abel wouldn’t be outside, but she saw everything through her windows. And that was without the passing traffic.

“This way,” said Remus, putting his arm out to direct Sirius down a quieter side street. He turned before Sirius had noticed, and Sirius crashed into his arm. It sent a tingle up towards Remus’ spine, the feeling of his body on Remus’ almost electric. “Too many people,” he muttered to his feet, and Sirius shrugged.

“I don’t care.”

“Yeah, but I do. People will talk.”

“Well, let them.”

Safe, on a quiet street leading only to a few cottages further down, Remus stopped out of the glare of the streetlights. He was beginning to think Sirius Black was a bit of a twat. Yes, he was the most beautiful man Remus had ever seen, and by far the most beautiful man to ever want to hold a conversation with Remus, but he was a twat. He didn’t listen, or if he did, he didn’t care about anything Remus was saying. He lacked basic common sense. He had that look about him of being permanently angry at the world, a man who always had something to rage against. Needed something to rage against.

“Easier said than done,” said Remus, mirroring Sirius’ words back at him. The other boy snorted.

“I don’t want to argue with you,” said Remus. “Doesn’t seem worth it.”

“Nah,” Sirius agreed. “It isn’t worth it. Friends?” He stuck out his hand again, the nails on it painted with chipped pink nail polish. 

“Friends.” Remus shook it. This time, he let his hand linger a little too long, distracted by the curve of Sirius’ mouth as he smiled, and the crease in the corner of his eyes, and the way the front of his hair fell over his face just enough to be noticeable. And Sirius noticed. 

“I’ve got to go,” he said. However much he wanted to stay, right here on the street, he couldn’t. How could he? Sirius looked him up and down like he was something to be eaten, and Remus felt like he was being pulled towards the other boy like a puppet on strings at Barry Island. He’d kiss him if he stayed here, or do something equally stupid, and he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. “I’ve got to go,” he repeated, and he pulled his hand out of Sirius’, why it was even still there he didn’t know, and he spun around, shaking his head.

“Why?” Sirius asked. He looked almost abandoned, standing where Remus had left him, and Remus was already a few steps away. “Why?”

“I’ve got to to go.” It was all Remus could get out. “I just - I have to.”

He left, refusing to look back at Sirius black there, probably still in the middle of the street, because there wasn’t any noise except Remus’ own boots on the pavement. At the corner, he realised he was running. He didn’t stop until he reached the corner of his own road, where he stopped dead, bent over to catch his breath. Behind him, the road was silent and empty. He didn’t even know if Sirius could make it back alone.

He’d be fine, Remus decided. It hasn’t been a long walk. He was a grown up who could look after himself. It was better for both of them that Remus had left, after all.

His father was still waiting as Remus unlocked the door as quietly as he could. Lyall Lupin sat in the front room in the old rattan chair he always sat in, with the cushion that sagged in a perfect imprint of the man, like he was waiting just for Remus to arrive. He stood up as soon as he did, leaning heavily on his stick. An accident in the mine the year before had put him out of work and onto the stick, his left leg beneath it twisted up. His mood had never been cheerful before the accident, but it’d made him worse.

“So, boy. You came home.”

“I was having a drink with Pete and the boys. Played some cards.”

Lyall scoffed. “With the boys. Means a different thing to your lot, that does. Which one was it?”

“None of them, Da.” Remus wasn’t going to think about Sirius. Not his hair, not his jacket, not the way that he’d looked at him across the room. Because Sirius didn’t understand any of this, couldn’t, and Remus belonged here, not in that world. “I said I’d forget all of that, and I have, I promise. I’m not lying. I’m not.”

“Yeah? Likely story. I’ll believe that when you’ve married yourself a nice girl and given us a couple of grandchildren, and not before, lad.” Lyall took a step closer, and, even though he was an inch shorter than Remus, seemed to tower over his son. “You put one foot wrong, boy, and you won’t be leaving this house til they’re gone, you hear me? You’re living under my roof, and you’ll act like it. You understand?”

“Yes, Dad. I’m not going to. I’m not like that. I promise.”

Lyall scoffed again. “Get out of my sight.”

Remus opened his mouth to apologise again, but closed it as Lyall’s walking stick rapped him around the legs.

“Just get out!”

He retreated up the stairs as fast as he could, and into the back bedroom he’d slept in since he was tiny. From here, with the curtains left open from earlier, he could see the main street. Against his better judgement, Remus cracked the window open, letting in the sounds, too. Laughter rose from the group walking along the road, and Lily’s hair was easy to spot in the middle of it. She hung from the arm of one of the blokes from London, the lanky one, and Sirius, the boy in the leather jacket, was just behind them, laughing at something someone had said. For all his refusal to go tonight, for everything he’d said to his dad, Remus wanted nothing more than to be down there with them. The sound of singing began to reach the window, an old drinking song that Remus’ grandfather used to sing. Remus snapped the window shut.

They were leaving Sunday. A day and a half, that was all he had to get through.


	3. Chapter 3

The tree in the garden proved more work than Remus had anticipated. It was half one before he’d finished stripping it back to Hope Lupin’s satisfaction, and after he’d cleared up the garden and himself, it was well into the afternoon. Not that Remus had anything else to be doing. Before the strike, he’d have done some overtime at the pit on a Saturday, because they needed the money after his father’s accident, or he'd have taken the bus into the town with Pete and the boys, got a few drinks in one of the pubs there. He’d have half-heartedly chatted up the mate of whichever girl someone was trying to charm, and they’d all have got the last bus back to the village, happy enough in their own ways, taking the mick out of each other. 

But Remus wasn’t a scab, and none of them had the money for the bus or the pubs or the girls any more, so he was here, watching a game show on the telly with his parents, arms aching from hauling the tree branches down to the Browns, who’d use them on a bonfire to heat some water.

“You’re not going down the Institute tonight,” Lyall said, jerking Remus out his thought process.

“Lyall,” Hope began, but she fell silent when he shushed her, like always.

“I’m telling you, lad. There’s no reason you have to. You showed your face. You’ll tell your friends you’re tired, and you’ll stay at home with us. Where you belong.”

“Lyall,” Hope tried, again.  
“You’ll let me deal with this,” said Lyall, turning to his wife. “You’re too soft on him. He needs to learn.”

‘“Learn what?” Remus asked. He resisted the temptation to get up from the sofa and walk out. It wouldn’t help, because it had never helped. It’d make the inevitable worse, when Lyall caught up with him again, and, besides, Lyall was right. Remus had been reckless. 

“That you cannot,” Lyall started, banging the floor with his walking stick, “go around making a mockery of this family. That, sooner or later, you’ll have to be a man. Not whatever you are.” He banged the stick on the floor again. Remus looked at the carpet, the threadbare patch covered by a rug. If he concentrated hard enough on it, like he’d done when he was a child, he could let his father’s words go over his head. He didn’t need to hear them, not if he chose not to, and if he didn’t hear them, they couldn’t hurt him. 

“Are you listening, boy?” asked Lyall. Remus nodded. It never really worked. 

Half an hour later, he was in his room, the smaller of the two the house possessed and at the back of it. His small wooden window looked out over the backs of the terrace behind, the two sets of gardens, and the narrow alleyway that ran in between them. A group of boys, not yet old enough for the pits or for the Institute in their own right, but too old to want to tag along there with their families, occupied the alleyway, doing something with a football and a dropped branch off the tree. The windows in the terrace positive had their curtains closed, mostly, striped or floral or plain, and the few that didn’t were quiet, anyway. On a Saturday evening most here went to the Miners’ Institute, or sat in their front rooms with family. It was what they did.

Remus had a decision to make.

And he made it. He found his best shirt, the blue one without any darning, the jacket he had for weddings and christenings and the like, and a passable pair of trousers. It was too much. He stuck the jacket back onto it’s hanger on the rail, and found a jumper, navy, but that wasn’t right either. It didn’t go with the trousers. Remus pulled the jacket off the rail with a force that sent the hanger spinning, and put that back on. 

This was the right choice, he thought. He didn’t need to listen to his father. Maybe a third of the men he’d gone to school with were married, already, a handful with a kid or one on the way. Half the rest were seriously courting someone, like Peter was, and the rest wanted to be. Or they’d left. But Remus didn’t like to think about the ones that’d left Cwmgoed. They’d been the quiet ones, on the whole, the ones who’d never quite fitted in. Or the ones who clearly had something else in them, something bigger than this place, or the ones who’d joined the army. 

Remus didn’t have it in him to join the army, and he certainly didn’t have it in him to go to Cardiff and work for the MP like Leanne Matthews’ brother had.There’d been rumours about him from the start, that he wasn’t like the rest of them. That he didn’t fit. And Remus fitted in fine, here. He belonged here, in this village, in these valleys, in this country. He was Welsh. Not wanting to settle down with a nice girl didn’t have anything to do with whether he belonged here. Remus slid the wardrobe shut. It want as if he’d chosen this; he wasn’t trying to be difficult for his parents.

Hope Lupin waited for him at the bottom of the stairs. Aside from her, the sitting room was empty, and wherever Lyall was, he wasn’t here. Nor was he in the back room, because Remus could see that room was dark and empty, and he couldn’t be upstairs. Remus would have heard him go up.

“You’re not really going, are you?” she asked, her face lined with concern. “Your father - he doesn’t mean all of it, Remus, you know he doesn’t, but I wish you wouldn’t anger him so. It isn’t his fault. He just wants what’s best for you. He loves you, you see, you know that.”

“Yeah. I know that.” 

“But you’re going, aren’t you?”

Remus paused before answering. He couldn’t lie, he’d never been any good at lying.

“Yes. I’m going. I’m not going to talk to any of, of them from London. I promised Lily and Pete I’d go. Promised Pete a game of cards.”

“I trust you, Remus, I do. I just wish that you’d listen to your father. He’s trying to help, he is.”

“I do. I listen.” He didn’t know how to explain it. “I love you.”

Hope smiled. “I love you too, Remus.”

Remus stepped past her and walked to the door, and, even though she didn’t say anything, he felt the stab of disloyalty all the same. He almost wished he’d lied. Said he was going for a walk. But she’d never have believed him, not in smarter clothes than usual, not given that tomorrow morning, half the village would be more than willing to tell her where he’d been. 

“Sorry, mum,” he whispered, as he opened the door. She didn’t say anything back, but by the sigh he heard from Hope, Remus was sure she’d heard him.

He could do this. He didn’t need their approval, because he was a grown man, and he could go and play cards with his friends if he wanted to.

By the time he arrived at the Institute, Remus didn’t feel as confident as he had when he’d left the house. Now, without the anger fuelling him, he almost turned back, away from the doors, back through the village and into the safety of his house. He’d tell his father he’d just gone for a walk. He could tell him that yes, of course, he’d do what his father wanted. Apart from the fact that he couldn’t, there was no way he could do what his father was asking of him, it was the perfect plan. 

So he was left with the option to push open the heavy wooden door, walk into the hall, and do what he’d wanted to do. Why he wanted to do it, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t even think seeing Sirius Black was a good idea, for all the reasons he’d repeated on his way here. He was next to certain Sirius would never be interested in him for a start, not in that way, and definitely not as anything more than a curiosity. Raise some money, go to Wales, bag a miner. He wasn’t going to be anybody’s distraction.

Inside, the hall was quieter than the night before. Of those who’d left, whether loudly, like Remus’ father, or more quietly later, only one had turned up tonight. Amos Diggory stood awkwardly between his son and his wife, holding a beer he didn’t seem to want to drink. The visitors sat by the bar, a gap of at least a table between them and any other group, joined only by the members of the women’s committee, Alastor Moody, and an overenthusiastic Arthur Weasley. His wife, Molly, was nowhere to be seen, but she was always in the kitchen anyway.

“Remus!” shouted Lily, as soon as she spotted him. “Come on, over here!”

Half the room turned to look at him, and he felt like leaving. He hadn’t come here for the attention, not at all. He’d come here for a drink, that was all, and a game of cards with Peter and the rest of them. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Lily, or on an ordinary day wouldn’t want to sit with her, but he couldn’t, because of who she was sitting with? Or could he?

He’d come to see Sirius Black, as well. 

“Going to see Pete,” he muttered, half at Lily and half at the floor, then turned on his heel to the back of the room where Peter was. He lost four times in a row at cards and sank three pints.

“You okay, Remus?” Peter asked, his round face scrunched up in concern.

“Yeah. Fine.” He wasn’t. “Another half?”

He was four and a half pints in when he needed a piss, and he was coming out of the men’s, after that, when he saw a man in a battered leather jacket, with black curls loose to his shoulders, exit through the doors of the Institute. What Remus should have done was turn, back to the main hall, back to losing against Peter at cards. Instead, he turned the other way. He followed the man he was sure was Sirius Black out of the doors, across the expanse of concrete and gravel passed for a car park, and onto a back street. It couldn’t be anyone else. Nobody looked like that in Cwmgoed.

“Hey,” said the man, realising he was being followed. “What you doing following me?” His eyes widened as he turned around, and, yes, Remus was right. Sirius Black folded his arms. “It’s you,” he said. “Remus Lupin.”

Remus nodded, folding his own arms and trying not to show any sort of feeling about the fact that he, Sirius Black, had remembered who Remus was. Instead, he shrugged, going for nonchalant. He wanted to grin.

“Yeah.” He tried to work out an excuse for following him. “Had enough in there. I’m going home.”

“Last night, you walked the other way to go home.” Sirius pointed in the direction of Remus’ house, which was indeed the other way. “You lost?”

“No,” Remus said. He considered lying. “A man’s allowed to take the scenic route.”

“Bloody scenic around here, isn’t it?” said Sirius. “Fancy showing me?”

“Alright,” said Remus, shrugging again, as his heart tried to leap out of his chest. His palms were sweaty as he pointed in a direction as far away from his house as possible, and as far away from any of his parent’s closer friends, too. The entire village was crowded with gossips, men and women both, who thrived on knowing something someone else didn’t. “This way’s best. Come on. I’ll show you the mountain.”

“Entire country’s mountains, isn’t it?” Sirius grumbled, but he followed Remus’ lead anyway. They fell into step alongside each other, matching pace perfectly, like they did this all the time. “And rain.”

“We’ve got valleys, too. And cities, you know.” They passed the grocer’s, lights on in the flat above, because Malcolm who owned it had made it clear that he didn’t hold truck with any gays. The house next door was quiet and dark, and Remus was certain he’d seen Mandy and Thomas at the Institute earlier, closer than some to the table with the visitors on. “And it hasn’t rained for ages.”

“You ever been to England?”

“No,” Remus admitted. He’d never been bothered by that before. 

“I’d never been to Wales before yesterday.”

That didn’t surprise Remus. Sirius didn’t seem like the type of person that would come to Wales. He looked wrong on these streets, and not because he was, well, what he was. It was more that he looked too big for them, too London, with his jacket and his hair and even the way he wore his jeans. And yet, Sirius strode down the narrow streets like he belonged here, like he owned them, with all the confidence of a posh git. Remus’ movements were closer to skulking, especially when he didn’t want to be spotted.

“You don’t look like you’re enjoying this,” Sirius said, as the road began to slope downwards. “You don’t have to, you know.”

Remus shrugged. “Yeah. I know.” He carried on walking, with his hands in his pockets. If he stopped he might think better of this. If he stopped, he’d think about how walking off into the sunset with this beautiful man, this beautiful gay man, would look. He’d think about all the things that might happen, and how all of them might go wrong. “You coming or what?”“Course I am.” 

Neither of them said anything else until the neat terraced streets, in their predictable patterns, turned into a winding road that didn’t have a path. Remus cut left just before they reached the church on the outskirts of the village, and down a narrow wooded footpath that weaved in between the trees like the wood had encroached on the path, and not the other way around. Safer, there, Remus slowed his walk, and beside him Sirius did the same. He looked down for just a second. Sirius’ hand floated within a few inches of his, and it’d have been easy to reach out and grab it. He could have done it in one movement. Of course, he didn’t.

“Not much of a view,” remarked Sirius. “We’ve got trees in London.”

“Shut up and be patient,” Remus countered.

Sirius snorted in a way that suggested he didn’t find being patient very easy. Remus ignored him. It was all of about a minute, and a climb over the fence into the farmer’s field, and then they’d have a view. To Remus’ surprise, Sirius didn’t seem to have a problem with climbing a fence, and they were soon in the field, thankfully free of the cows that’d been here the last time Remus had come here. He led them both around the side of the barn, and there it was. A clear view from their position halfway up Cwmgoed mountain, over the valley, and across to the mountain on the other side. 

“Okay,” said Sirius. “That’s a view.”

“It’s alright.” Remus leant back against the stone of the barn. He was pleased Sirius liked it. He knew exactly why he had an urge to impress the other man, of course he did. Because he wanted to grab at him and snog him right here, right now. It was a terrible idea, one Sirius would never be interested in, and definitely one Remus could never go through with. 

“So what’s it like?”

“What’s what like? A mountain? You’re looking at one.”

“Working in the mines. You said last night you liked it. And, well, I was thinking, I don’t know what it’s like. You know,” he continued, pulling a packet of tobacco from his pocket and starting to roll himself a cigarette, “I’m out there raising money for you to keep your job, and I don’t really know what it is.”

He’d been thinking about what Remus had said. Sirius Black, this man, had gone away and thought about what Remus had said.“You were talking to Arthur and Alastor, weren’t you?”

“Honestly, the pair of them were more interested in asking about what we get up to in London than telling us what you do. I watched a couple of reports on the news before we started collecting. Based on what I’ve seen, I reckon they were a load of rubbish.”

“Thatcher’s using the press as a weapon,” said Remus, and Sirius nodded. 

“Sounds like anything that gets run on us.” He looked over at Remus and their eyes met, and Remus didn’t want to look away. He’d look at Sirius forever, he would. “You know. Gays.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Well, he’d seen the articles. He’d read about that man, last year, who’d run for some election in London and it’d turned nasty because he was gay. Remus’ father had said that the Labour Party shouldn’t have stood for it, shouldn’t have let him stand. He’d screwed the pages up and put them in the outside bin, and Remus, feeling like a naughty child, had gone out and got them, poured over the story in his room. The paper might still be in there, somewhere. He hadn’t wanted to sneak it out.

“No,” said Sirius. “I suppose you wouldn’t.”

Remus prickled at that. Not that it was fair. Sirius Black didn’t know the first thing about him, not really, and Remus didn’t plan on telling him. He’d only just told Lily, and he’d been friends with her since Year One. He’d met Sirius the day before. For all Remus knew, he’d run back to the others and tell them everything, that there’s some miner lad who thinks he’s into men, too, and isn’t that funny? 

He wouldn’t, though. Remus knew he would’t. He barely knew Sirius, but he knew, just knew, that he wasn’t that sort of a person. Remus was going to keep his mouth shut, anyway.

“Yeah,” he said. “I wouldn’t.”

They stood for a moment, neither of them saying anything. Sirius brushed hair back off his face, beautiful dark hair, that Remus wouldn’t mind running his fingers through. The wind, which Remus hadn’t noticed until then, blew it back across Sirius’ face almost instantly. 

“Glad we’ve got that sorted, then,” said Sirius.

“Why’d you want to come out here with me?”

“I come to Wales, might as well see some of it. More than I can see from the road and the bottom of a pint glass, anyway.”

Remus supposed that was fair. 

“It’s nice,” Sirius continued. “You know. The view.” 

As he said the last part, he looked over at Remus, not the mountain and trees and land ahead of them, and Remus shivered. It wasn’t about him. It couldn’t be. Sirius Black was curious about Wales and mining life, not trying to start anything with him, Remus. He focused on his shoes. It didn’t help. Instead of seeing the black of his boots against the grass, he saw an image in his mind of Sirius, leaning forwards, eyes looking like they had just then, and kissing him on the lips. 

“Yeah,” said Remus, looking directly at Sirius, as confidently as he dared. As close to flirting as he dared. “Lush.”

“What?”

“Lush. You know, nice. Good.”

“That Welsh?”

“Not the language. Just something everyone says.” This was more comfortable territory. He could talk about the way they spoke down here. He couldn’t talk about Sirius’ opinions on the view, not the way he’d looked at Remus.

“Alright.” Sirius pulled a packet of cigarettes out his pocket. “Fag?” he asked, raising an eyebrow, being certain to make eye contact. 

“Nah. Don’t smoke.” They’d had this conversation the night before, and by the way Sirius grinned as he returned them to his pocket, not even lighting one up for himself, Sirius knew that. He’d remembered. And there was something else about the way he’d said it. Like when Lily had been trying to flirt with him, once Remus had noticed what it was she’d been doing.

“Too much crap in your lungs already.” He remembered that.

“Yeah. Right.”

“What do you do out here, then?” Sirius asked. “Stare at mountains and shit? You must do stuff when you’re bored.”

“Don’t have time to get bored,” said Remus. “Always something that needs doing. When there’s not, well, beer, I suppose. Cards. Listen to Peter talk rubbish.”

“No girlfriend? James thought you were seeing that Lily girl.”

“No. I’m not. She, well, she fancied me, I think, but I don’t fancy her.” Remus paused. “What about you?”

“Nah. Broke up with a twat six months ago. Swore off men for a while after that. Thought I’d do better waiting for the right one to come along, rather than flinging myself after anyone who showed an interest. Having standards, that’s what James called it.” He stopped, suddenly, at the end of the sentence, and frowned. It was like he thought he’d said too much, but he hadn’t. It was Remus that’d said far too much, once again.

The image of Sirius leaning in towards him for a kiss flashed into Remus’ brain again. He blinked rapidly, as if that’d make it disappear. It didn’t, so he tried to focus on the tip of the mountain, instead, barely visible through the cloud and the darkness. That only worked slightly better. 

“You ever have a girlfriend?”

“What’s that to you?” Remus felt his palms begin to sweat. 

“Nothing. Just curious.”

“Well, don’t be.” He tried to make that sound final, like he wasn’t going to discuss it any further. Sirius made a scoffing noise. “It isn’t any of your business. You don’t know me.”

“Know some things,” said Sirius. “Know the way you look at me.”

“I don’t look at you.” Remus felt a rising sense of panic, swirling in his stomach and rising until he felt slightly sick. He didn’t. He wanted to look at Sirius like that, but he wasn’t, he hadn’t. He hadn’t done anything wrong at all.“It’s not a problem. Fucking hell, I’d be an idiot if I had a problem with it. No gay bloke would.” 

Remus stole a glance at Sirius. He was kicking at the wall behind him with his foot, twisting the cigarette packet around in his hands so that it looked more of a mangled mess than a cardboard packet. Fuck. Remus looked away again. He couldn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything he could even begin to say to that.

“You don’t have to act on it. You’ll feel better if you acknowledge it, though. At least admit it to yourself.”

“What?”

Remus wanted to move, or to run away, or something that wasn’t standing here listening to this. 

“You’re gay, aren’t you?”

“Shut up!” Remus spun around towards Sirius and shoved him back into the wall, a warning hand above the other man’s mouth. “Don’t say that! Not - not here. You can’t say that.”

“None of my lot will have a problem with it.” Sirius at least lowered his voice to say that, and Remus let his hands fall to his sides. “And they’re accepting us here, aren’t they?”

“Some of them are. You don’t see all of it. Anyway, it’s different for you lot. They’ll accept things from you lot they wouldn’t from one of us.”

“Different. Yeah.”

“It is.”

“You didn’t deny it.” Sirius locked eyes with Remus, and Remus wasn’t going to look away. He wasn’t going to act like he was scared.

“I’m not. I’m - you can’t accuse people of that. You can’t say that.”

“Yeah. So all’s fine and dandy. You’re happy here, are you?"

“I am.” Was he? Remus looked away. In the corner of his eye he caught a movement, and took a step towards Sirius, almost to hide him from view, but it was a fox. “I belong here.”

“Yeah, I suppose. I thought I belonged in my parent’s place, too, until I realised I didn’t. Maybe it’s different for you, though.” Sirius said that in a tone that implied he didn’t really believe it’d be any different. But it was. It had to be. Because before last night, Remus had never had any desire to leave.

They were inches from one another, not touching, but close enough that one movement would bring their bodies together. Sirius stood with his back against the wall, hands stuffed into the pocket of his jeans, almost like he didn’t trust himself to have them loose. His jacket hung open, and Remus could see the beginnings of his chest where his t-shirt dipped below his collarbone just slightly. He took a deep breath. He couldn’t get distracted.

“Shut up,” said Remus, again. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He could walk off at this point. He’d seen plenty of men get to this point of a fight and then end it, walk off, work alongside each other again. The only flaw in that logic was that this wasn’t a fight, it was something else, and Remus didn’t have a plan.

“Tell me, then,” suggested Sirius. “Tell me what the deal is. I’ll listen.”

“I don’t know.” He’d spent half the morning, while he was hacking at that tree, working out what he’d say if he encountered Sirius Black again. Half the lines he’d came up with were rubbish, worse than useless, faced with the actual man in front of him, and the other half he’d forgotten. Remus found himself looking at Sirius’ lips, wondering if he could solve this problem by kissing him. He couldn’t. “I don’t know what the deal is.”

“Not going to be a dick about it,” said Sirius. “I don’t mind what you are.” He held up his hands as if in surrender. “Even if you’re not interested in me, you can tell me anything. I’ll be gone tomorrow.”

“Even if -“ Remus repeated. “Even if I’m not interested in you?”

“Yeah. Not trying to snare you by luring you into an emotional moment and then snogging you, am I? Not saying I’d say no to that, you know.” He patted the wall beside him, and Remus flinched at the sudden movement. “Talk to me. If you want, I’ll go first.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Carefully, slowly, Remus stepped backwards, turning himself so that instead of looming over the other man, he was next to Sirius, both of them with their backs to the wall. “You go first.”

“Alright. I told you my parents weren’t impressed with me being gay, didn’t I?” he said. Remus nodded, but Sirius was staring straight ahead, off down the slope ahead of them and into the trees. “Well, she was nasty about it. Nasty’s not even the word. James used abusive, his parents used criminal offence, but that’s what they think. You know how sometimes you think someone’s right about something, though, but you don’t want to admit it? Because admitting it makes it have actually happened? Yeah.”

He played with the edge of his jacket as he continued to speak, still staring away from them. Remus watched him out the corner of his eye. He didn’t want to interrupt, because this was Sirius’ story.

“Mum had expectations of all of us. Me, my brother, our cousins- they lived with us, you see, because Mum’s brother’s Royal Navy. And when Mum had expectations of something, that was the word she used, you fell into line, because she didn’t give you another option. You did it or you learnt the consequences, and then you did it either way.”|

“She hit you?”

“Oh God, no. Mum would never have lowered herself to hitting us. Physical punishment was for commoners.” Sirius saw Remus flinch at that. “Shit. Sorry. That’s her words, not mine, fuck.”

“S’alright,” said Remus. It wasn’t. None of this was alright, but he couldn’t interrupt Sirius again. “Go on.”

“Anyway,” he continued, “James reported them to social services. Predictably, that ended badly for me. I left.”

“Why?”

“They’re titled. Aristocracy. My dad sits in the House of Lords. Who’re they going to believe, the Honourable Orion Black, six thousand letters after his name, Baron Highbury, esteemed Tory peer, or his son, a kid, who yeah, he's entitled to use the Honourable in front of his name but he got kicked out of Eton, didn't you hear? He stole a motorbike. He’s got a criminal record for snapping a fence on a protest march, and a warning for underage drinking.” 

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” Sirius glared at his boots like they were the cause of all of this. “Oh, and, yeah. Suspected poof.”

“It’s bollocks,” said Remus. “All of it.”

“Bollocks is about right, yeah.” Sirius shrugged. “Well, confirmed poof. And I did snap the fence, with a camping mallet.”

“My father’s not anything fancy, not like that,” Remus began. “He’s just a miner. Was a miner. He had an accident a couple of years ago, and he’s not been able to go back to it since. So its just me now, who works. He’s always been, he’s never liked change. Never been any good with things not going how he expects them to. So when he found out, well, he wants to pretend it doesn’t exist.”

Sirius made a non-committal noise that encouraged Remus to continue talking. He wasn’t sure where he was going with this, there wasn’t much structure to the tale, but now he’d started it, he might as well finish.

“I dunno how Mum feels about it. I don’t think she likes it, she points out he’s right about how it won’t be accepted, how he’s - Dad’s - just trying to help.” Remus took a deep breath. “There was a lad a few years ago hounded out the village over it. They’re worried it’ll happen to me.”

It felt better to tell the story, well, the parts of it that Remus thought made sense at that moment. He idly scratched at the floor with the toe of his shoe as, next to him, Sirius seemed to be thinking. The silence stretched towards uncomfortable. 

“Well,” said Sirius, eventually, “like you said, it’s bollocks, all of it.”

“Doesn’t make it any less likely to happen.”

“No.” He glanced over at Remus and their eyes met for a second. “I know why you don’t want to say it. That you’re gay. Not to all those people, anyway.”

The silence drifted over them again, but this time it was less uncomfortable, more just friendly. Or comforting. Sirius scraped his hair out his face again. He had incredibly long eyelashes, Remus noticed, and eyes that were as grey as the sky above them. And he was interested in Remus. He’d said that, hadn’t he? That he wouldn’t say no to snogging him. Remus let his eyes drift down to Sirius’ lips, soft and almost welcoming looking. 

And then Remus, with five beers in him, made a rash decision.

I’m interested,” he said, almost tripping over the words. “You know. If you are.”

That started Sirius out of his own thoughts. “What?”

Saying it once had been easy. Remus had just let the thought fall out, just as he decided to say it, no weighing up of what it’d do. Saying it a second time felt harder, somehow, like it couldn’t be a mistake, anymore, not then. Not if he’d said it twice.

“I’m interested. In, well, you.”

“Shit,” said Sirius, and Remus’ heart fell for a moment. “Didn’t think you’d actually be into me. Even if you’re gay.”

“Why?”

“Fucking hell,” said Sirius. “You’re gorgeous.” He ran a hand down Remus’ neck, and Remus shivered. “I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you, you know. Wanted to do more than that. I never thought you’d be into me too.”

“Yeah,” Remus breathed. “Me neither.”

“Look at you,” Sirius continued. “Your hair, your face. Those eyes.” His hand came up, stroking the lines of Remus’ face, while the other hand slipped lower down his back. Sirius’ face was inches from his, and Remus could feel the air on his neck with every word the other boy spoke. “Your arse. I’ve been staring at your arse since I saw you. Hoping I’d get close enough to touch it.”

“Go on, then, touch it.” Remus could feel himself blush bright red as soon as he said it, but he didn’t regret anything. As soon as he spoke, Sirius grinned and moved his hand further downwards, skimming over his arse to rest on it with a squeeze. Remus took a sharp intake of breath, and Sirius’ grin broke even wider.

“Like that? Done this before?”

“Yeah.” There’d been a boy at school, and a couple of rushed fumbles in a pub in the town. He wasn’t some idiot who didn’t know anything. Nobody had ever talked to him like this, though, like he was someone that mattered, someone they wanted, rather than just someone who’d scratch an itch. “You?”

“Course.” His face came closer, and he kissed Remus’ neck, softly at first, then urgently and more insistently. Remus let his hands slide down Sirius’s body too, as he tipped his head back against the wall to give him better access, stopping his hands just at Sirius’ belt. like he was asking for permission. “You can if you want,” said Sirius, pulling his mouth from Remus’ neck for just a second. “If you want to.”

So Remus let his hand slide down over the line of the other boy’s belt, over the fabric of his jeans, over the curve of his arse. If it was possible for his cock to have got any harder, it had, just at the feel of this.

“Like it?” Sirius asked.

“Yeah. Fuck. You’ve got an amazing arse.”

“So’ve you.” Sirius squeezed again, and Remus found his mouth, crashing their lips into one another with all the force of everything he was feeling. His hands pulled Sirius’s arse closer until their bodies were pressed together, and Remus could feel Sirius’ cock pressing into his thigh through their jeans, as hard as Remus was himself. It’d be so easy to reach around to the boy’s belt buckle, sink to his knees on the cold pavement, and take his cock in his mouth. 

“Oh God,” said Sirius. “I’d fuck you here, I would.”

“Can’t.”

“Nobody’ll see.” 

“Not here.” Remus tried to think of somewhere safer. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. “Not like this.”

“Yeah,” Sirius said, his hand stroking Remus arse still. “Not the dream location, is it? Be better if we wait. Find somewhere I can fuck you properly.” He kissed Remus again, like Remus would disappear if he didn’t, raising a hand to run it through his hair. “Or you can fuck me. I’d do you either way.”

Remus couldn’t wait. He didn’t want to wait. He felt like he was going to explode with a need to shag Sirius Black, to feel his cock in his hand, not just through their trousers. But he couldn’t. Not here, not now. Instead he reached for his mouth again, twisting the two of them around so that it was now Sirius’ back against the hard stone of the wall, running his hands through the perfect black curls. Sirius gasped against Remus’ mouth and Remus loved that, loved that he’d done that to this boy. He couldn’t take his mouth off him, couldn’t stop himself from pressing himself towards Sirius’ body.

“You’re amazing,” he breathed, into Sirius’ neck, as he finally made himself pull away. Sirius breathed heavily into his ear. “Bloody hell.”

“Not to stop this,” said Sirius, tracing his hands across Remus’ back, “but if I don’t step away from you soon I’m going to come in my boxers.”

“Yeah. Me too.” They disentangled themselves at that, both of them breathing heavily. Sirius’ hair stood half on end down one side of his head, thanks to Remus’ hands and the wall, and Remus’ shirt had come untucked at the back. He made to neaten himself up, he’d have to, if he was going to walk back down to the village. 

“You want to, though. It isn’t just me?” Sirius asked.

“Yeah. More than I've wanted anything.”

“Fucking hell.” Sirius flopped back against the wall, sliding down it so that he sat on the floor. Remus joined him, despite how damp the grass felt even through his trousers. “I’ve never met anyone I wanted this much. Come back to London. We’ve got a spare seat on the bus, a bit of room for a bag, you can crash at mine, no problem. Or Dorcas’ll have you, if that’s too much, she’s always finding strays to take in.”

“I belong here.” Just for a moment, Remus allowed himself to imagine that. Sitting next to Sirius on the bus as it drove out of the valleys, across the bridge, into England and further from home than Remus had ever been in his life. Away from his parents, the pit, the village, his life. And once he drove away, that’d be it. He’d never come back, because he’d never be able to come back. “I can’t.”

“Not going to spoil this by arguing with you,” Sirius said. Slowly, he reached out and, to Remus’ surprise, took his hand. Sirius hand felt as soft as Remus had imagined it would. “You’re still the most beautiful man I’ve met.”

“I’m not.”

“You met every gay in London? You’d do better believing me than trying to persuade me I’m wrong.”

“I’m gay,” said Remus. Next to him, Sirius raised an eyebrow. “Never said it out loud before,” Remus explained. “I’m gay.”

“Yeah. You are.” A pause for a moment, and Sirius squeezed Remus’ hand. “And there’s nothing wrong with it.”

He squeezed Remus’ hand again, and it felt warm, comforting, somehow like he was supposed to be doing exactly that. And every part of Remus’ body wanted to go back to what they were doing earlier, to pressing every part of themselves up against the other one, to hands all over each other and tongues in each other’s mouths. But it wasn’t a good idea. After all, Remus needed to be able to forget about him when he got on his bus tomorrow, and to live his life without thinking about what Sirius Black was doing. There was no way this could work.

“How long have you known?” Sirius asked. “Even if you haven’t said it before, you must have known you were.”

“Yeah. I knew.” And Remus’ dad had worked it out, too. And Lily. How many people knew, he wondered. Alastor? His grandmother? Peter? “Almost ten years.”

“Who was it?” Sirius asked. “The one that made you realise?”

“Some kid at school. William. I was fourteen, he was a year older. Straight, I reckon. He’s married now, two boys, another on the way. He works down the same pit as me, and he’s married to our neighbour’s cousin.”

“And he was gorgeous.”

“Yeah.”

“They always are. Usually straight, too.” Sirius stared at the toes of his battered leather boots as Remus chanced a glance at him.

“Who was yours?”

“Oh, God. James. I had a raving crush on him from when we were thirteen.” He took a moment to look up from his boots and grin ruefully at Remus. “Never told him that, mind, so don’t you go telling him. I’ve never told anyone. He’s got an ego into next week as it is, that’s what his mum says, and she’s not wrong.”

“Do you still fancy him?” Remus wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to that question, even if it didn’t matter, even if he was going to forget this boy after he drove off tomorrow.

“Nah. Definitely not. For one thing, he’s straight, and I’ve never been into fighting a losing battle, and for another, he’s James. He’s my best friend, but he’s not my type.”

“What’s your type?”

“Oh, you know. Tall, strong types, a few muscles, broad shoulders,” Sirius said, his spare hand brushing Remus’ own shoulders as he spoke, “brown hair, with a curl. An arse you could stare at for days. Always been a sucker for a clever boy. Maybe a Welsh accent.” His hand wove it’s way into Remus’ hair, and he shuddered, before Sirius pulled it away with a grin. “I mean, nothing in particular.”

Maybe it was the things Sirius had said, or the touch, or just that Remus knew, in that moment, that there was no way he could forget Sirius tomorrow, but Remus, in one motion, grabbed the back of Sirius’ head and pushed it towards him so their lips collided once more. It was perfect. He was perfect.

“If I’d known it’d have that kind of reaction, I’d have saved it for when we were properly alone,” muttered Sirius, pulling his lips away just far enough to get the words out. “Might add excellent kisser to my list.”

“Fuck,” said Remus, which was all the words he could get out. He let out a breath to steady himself. “You’re amazing. You’re going home tomorrow.”

“I told you. You could come with us.” Sirius shifted himself backwards to separate them a few inches, and that was further than Remus wanted them to be apart. “There’s space on the bus. We’ll find you a bed. Or if you can’t, Albus thinks we can get another few hundred together in the next couple of weeks. I’ll make sure I’m on the bus when we drop it down, yeah? I’ve barely seen the village. You can show me.”

“Can’t,” said Remus, automatically. “I can’t leave the strike, not now.”

Sirius nodded. “Yeah. Thought you’d say that.” He stroked Remus’ face, soft and gentle. “I like that. You’re sticking with what you believe in. Brave.”

Remus thought it felt really rather cowardly, but he wasn’t going to say that. Instead he just let himself sit there, trying to commit every bit of the night to memory, as the cold seeped through his jeans. Sirius might not come back, after all. He might not want a repeat of this if he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A scab is someone who crosses a picket line to work during a strike action, therefore going against the aims of the strike.


	4. Chapter 4

Remus didn’t go down to watch Sirius and the rest of them leave. Some of the village had; Lily and Alastor Moody, Arthur Weasley and a handful of the women. How could he have gone? Someone would have known, because he’d not spoken a word to any of them in public, and he’d refused in front of everyone to. They’d have known he’d done something. His father would have known he’d done something.

He stayed in the house when Lily knocked on the door, before their bus was due to leave. He dug a vegetable patch for his mum, staying in the garden and out of trouble until well after the bus would have driven away, and separated out the seedling tomatoes. He had a bath, and read half the paper before chucking the rest in the bin. He avoided thinking about Sirius Black.

“Good riddance,” said Lyall, when Hope brought news back that the gays had gone. “Ought never to have come here to begin with.”

Back to normal. Sirius Black was gone, like he’d never been here at all, and Remus didn’t have to deal with any of it any more. He was better off without it all. He could forget that Sirius had ever said any of that, he could forget the feel of the other man’s lips on his, and he could forget the rest of the urges.

He couldn’t forget Sirius himself, not at all.

With the disappearance of the gays, his parents were much less concerned where Remus was and what he was doing. Or his father was, at any rate. Hope still fussed and worried, especially if he missed tea, but Remus couldn’t stay in the house. He took to going for walks, walks to anywhere, really, because it wasn’t within the four walls of his house, wasn’t being watched by his father, wasn’t listening to the tap of his cane on the carpet and his muttering at the paper. It wasn’t feeling trapped. 

The park was still and quiet, not even a light wind to rustle through the trees. Remus, early, sat on a swing to wait. There had been four in the park six months ago, but one of them hung only as useless chains, and a second looked as though it would go the same way if Remus put his weight on it. The two that still worked had rust on the red-painted frames, the ground below them an indent of scuffed dirt. He kicked off and let it swing back and forth, just enough for a gentle movement at first, then higher and higher until he felt his stomach swoop with every swing. 

“How old are you?” Lily asked, coming into his view at the base of the swings, her arms folded. 

“Young enough.”

Remus let the swing slow down gradually, until he was back to just a gentle swing, and pointed at the swing next to him. Lily shrugged. 

“Oh, go on, then.” She kicked off and they swung in unison, neither of them speaking for a moment. “It’s actually quite fun, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Remus had rediscovered the swings around the same time his father had discovered a certain fact about him. There was something freeing about them. The motion helped him not to think.

“So,” said Lily, turning her head towards him. “Do I need to ask what’s making you feel like this, or can I guess?” She didn’t give him chance to answer before starting to guess, which Remus completely expected. “You’re into men, and then you sulk when a bunch of gay men leave. Plus, one of them spent the entire evening eyeing you up, both nights they were here.”

“Did he?” Remus stopped his swing with a push of his boots into the dirt. Sirius had said that, but Remus hadn’t really believed it. And what if someone else had noticed? Someone who wasn’t Lily?

“Yeah. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t notice.” She stopped her own swing with a grin. “Probably too busy staring at him back.”

Remus felt his face turn a shade of red. “I didn’t - nobody noticed, did they?”

“Doubt it. Half the room were staring at them, but, you know, you were staring at one in particular. And, well, differently.” She started her swing off again, slowly. “I think I’m the only person that noticed. I was looking for it, I suppose. Anyway, we’d know if someone else had spotted you. There’d be enough gossip about it that I’d have heard the rumour six times by now, and I haven’t heard a thing.” 

Remus let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding in, and stopped grinding the toe of his boot into the dirt. Over the railings of the park and the trees, the sun was setting behind the mountains, and, in the distance, the vague hustle and bustle of people in the village going about their business could be heard. Nobody was closer than the High Street, he didn’t think.

“Yeah.” He glanced at Lily. “Dad hasn’t had anything to say about it.”

“Good,” Lily said, firmly. “He shouldn’t do, anyway.”

“He’s just trying to keep me safe. He wants what’s best for me.”

Lily grimaced. “What’s best for you is that you’re happy.”

“I live under his roof. I have to respect that.”

“And you pay more than half the bills, or you did before the strike.” She kicked off again, swinging a slow arc back and forth. "You’re just parroting his lines, you know that, don’t you?”

Remus pushed himself off the swing. “Not sitting around for you to tell me how I’m wrong about everything,” he said. 

“Yeah, well, I’m not doing that. Sit down. I’m just saying, I don’t think everything your dad has to say is right.” Lily folded her arms, letting go of the chains of the swing. Her swing ground to a halt, and that was it for a moment, her glaring up at him from under her fringe, Remus glowering down. “Please just stay,” she said, finally, her tone much less indignant. “I don’t agree with your father, alright, but if it’s what you believe, I won’t argue with you about it.”

Remus sat down. Years of experience with Lily Evans taught him that what she meant was that she wouldn’t bring up the argument for at least another five minutes. The worst thing was, she had a point. Every single one of those arguments had been fresh out of Lyall Lupin’s mouth, and Remus had repeated them back to Lily. 

“Fine,” he said. “Besides, you were staring at the straight one.”

“What straight one - oh!” Lily covered her mouth with her hand. “He’s not gay?”

“Not if you believe Sirius.” If Lily wanted to say something about Remus’ use of Sirius’ name, she squashed it for more important matters. “He says that James is straight, and they were mates before he came out to his family. James tags along with Sirius’ friends because he’s lived with Sirius since they were sixteen, and, apparently, his footie mates aren’t as fun as Sirius’ gay mates.”

Lily had turned a bright shade of red, which clashed horribly with her hair. Remus felt like keeping going.

“Very into girls, I hear. Tends to fall for lesbians, too, so he’s single at the minute.” Remus was almost enjoying this. “I heard he likes short, opinionated, ginger girls.” Lily made to hit him on the arm, and Remus kicked off, swinging out of her way just before she could make contact. They both laughed, just for a second. 

“Well,” said Lily, skimming her toes along the dirt. “Isn’t as if we’ll probably see them again.”

“No. It isn’t. Unless they raise more money.”

“One of them said they were trying. The old one, Albus, said he reckoned they could raise almost twice as much for next time. Oh God. What if they do? What do we say to them?”

“They might not come here. They might go to another village, or some others of the group might come up, I dunno.” He didn’t want to get his hopes up, did he?

“Nah. Did you see the way Sirius looked at you? If he’s got any say in it, he’s coming back.” Lily paused for a moment, before giggling and continuing. “Anyway, I noticed that you used his name, didn’t you?” She prodded Remus in the arm. “How come you knew that, from your little corner with your mates and your card game?”

“Overheard someone use it.” As he said it, Remus knew it wasn’t a convincing lie. Or, it was the sort of lie that might have worked on someone else, but wouldn’t fly with Lily, not even slightly.

“Or, could it be, that you and him went for a moonlit stroll?”

“Shut up!”

“Shh, nobody saw. But he left the building as I was getting another bottle of gin from the cellar, just after you’d gone to the loo. When I came back in the hall, you’d left, and neither of you came back. And James asked if I knew where he’d been, because he hadn’t shown up at Arthur and Molly’s until late.”

“What did you - “

“I said I didn’t have a clue, of course. What sort of a friend do you take me for?”

“A good one?”

“You’d better,” Lily warned. 

The sun had set, and the park was now covered in the sort of half-darkness that seemed to come at the end of the summer. There was no obvious source of light, the park didn’t have streetlights or anything, aside from the lights in the houses that overlooked it, half of them with their curtains open still. Remus could still see Lily perfectly, her and the swings, the trees and the slowly rusting railings 

“I wouldn’t have told anyone else any of this,” he said. Lily smiled. “Honestly. You’re the only person I’ve told when I wasn’t, wasn’t, you know, interested.”

“Your parents know,” she said. “Don’t they?”

“Didn’t tell them, though.” Remus didn’t want to talk about that, and Lily didn’t push it.

“Did you tell him?” Lily asked, cautiously. 

“Yeah.”

“Did you - ?”

“Yeah.” Remus immediately jumped to make things clear. “Not that. Just kissing.”

There had been nothing ‘just kissing’ about it, Remus thought. He’d kissed people before. Boys, mostly, and Helen Smith. Those’d been just kissing. He’d expected nothing with Helen, having half known, even by then, that he wasn’t interested in girls at all. He’d assumed that what he’d had other times was it, and it hadn’t been, it hadn’t been even close.

“Remus? Oh God, it was that good, was it? I’ve asked you the same question twice now.”

“Fuck off,” he muttered. This wasn’t for pisstaking. He got up off the swing again and made it five steps away before he realised Lily wasn’t, not really. “Sorry,” he added. “Yeah. It was good.” 

Lily got up too and they started to walk over towards the back of the park, away from the houses, where the grass was longer and wilder, the trees and shrubs beginning to dot themselves around. They’d plays cowboys here, as kids, and cops and robbers, hide and seek and stuck in the mud. He should have brought Sirius here. Nobody came here after it was dark, and the kids who played here now would have been called in for dinner and bed.

“I had my first kiss round here,” said Lily, wandering off to the right, towards a thicker stand of trees, and Remus followed. “Just back here. I was fifteen, and he was on the school football team.”

“I remember that,” said Remus. “Not you doing it. Hearing about it in school the next day.”

Lily laughed. She was beautiful when she laughed, the freckles along her forehead creasing up with her laughter, and, if he was into girls, Remus could see how he’d have gone for her. It’d have been easier. His parents would approve. Hers wouldn’t have before, not with the way her mum was so keen on Petunia making what she called a good match, which meant one from outside the village, one who didn’t work in the pits. But she’d refused all of the men like that she’d met, and Remus was a good lad from a respectable family, never in any trouble, looked after his parents. They liked him.

“When did you know?” he asked her. Lily, still back on the other line of thought, raised an eyebrow. “That I was, you know, gay?”

“Oh God, I dunno. Not when I took you to the cinema that time, definitely. Not even when I asked you round for Sunday lunch with my parents and that god-awful boy Petunia was into at the time. Did you ever realise that one was a date, too?”

“Fuck. No.”

Lily laughed again. “Don’t worry. I think there were three dates, in the end.”

“Oh bloody hell.” Remus couldn’t look at her. Had they really gone on three dates?

“I think it was the third time, when we went into Llannydd on the bus, that I tried to hold your hand and you looked confused. And then we went to the cafe in Woolworth’s, didn’t we, and there was a man in a suit on the next table, a couple of years older than us, and you stared at him just a little too long. It was either then or when Molly Weasley got her twins christened, and you were flirting with her brother, the one that came over from Aberfan.”

Remus remembered that. Gideon Prewett. He’d never worked out if he was gay or not, probably not, but Remus had thought about him for months afterwards. Never seen him again, either. 

“Still fancied you then,” said Lily, a little wistfully. “At least I know it wasn’t me.”

“Course not,” said Remus, immediately, and Lily looked pleased. “You’re beautiful. You’ve been amazing over this, haven’t you, and you’re doing all that stuff for the Women’s Committee, you’re funny, anyone’d be lucky to have you.” He paused for a second. “James’d be lucky to have you.”

“Do you think?”

“Yeah. When have I ever lied to you?”

“Er, the time you said you weren’t drinking beer with Peter Pettigrew and Caradoc Dearborn when we were thirteen?”

“That doesn’t count.”

“No, you’re right, because it was the worst lie I’ve ever seen. Peter had vomit on his shoes, and it was in a bloody beer bottle.”

“Oh, like you didn’t drink beer at your cousin’s baby’s christening.”

“And I told you the truth, offered you some, and nobody was sick. It’s not the same and you know it.” Lily folded her arms, with the air of someone who’s won an argument and they know it. Remus conceded.

They carried on walking, off further into the back recesses of the park. Remus idly wondered if there’d be rumours about this, tomorrow. He’d told his mum he was meeting with Lily, after all, and they’d been visible from the backs of all the odd side of Brook Terrace, plus half a dozen houses on the other side of the park. Someone would have seen, and someone, Remus thought, would gossip given half a chance. He glanced at Lily, who was watching her feet as they walked through the undergrowth. If he wasn’t what he was, he’d have been lucky to have her. If he wasn’t gay.

If he wasn’t utterly hopelessly interested in Sirius Black.

“Do you really think they’ll come back here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Lily, not having to stop and ask who he was talking about. “I do. They said they were going to try and bring more money, they wouldn’t have said that if they didn’t think they could.”

“People make promises they don’t mean all the time.”

“Did he promise you anything? Sirius?”

“No. Said I could go to London with them, if I wanted. Just get on the bus, he’s got some lesbian mate who puts people up all the time. he said. Or I could stay with him, if I wanted.”

“Wow.” Lily looked impressed. “He really likes you, doesn’t he?”

“I dunno.”

“Nah, come on, he must do. If he just wanted a quick, you know, then there’s got to be easier ways of doing it than trying to seduce some Welsh lad he’s met once. What if you were crazy or something? Be a nightmare if he moved you in.”

“Or it’s a thing. Like he just wants to try someone who isn’t a posh bugger.”

Lily wrinkled her nose. “Most of them aren’t. James vaguely mentioned that he and Sirius went to some posh school, but one of the lesbian girls, Marlene, she’s from a mining village in Yorkshire. And a couple of the boys, too, I was talking to one that’d snuck away from somewhere in London, he lives in his parent’s council flat still. Houndslow, I think. Is that a place? And they were saying, there’s others from mining towns, not Wales, north England, who refused to come, thought it’d be like going back home.”

“I think so,” said Remus. His mind was whirring. If there were people like him in London, working class gay lads, maybe it couldn’t be that. “I think it’s a place.”

“He likes you,” said Lily. “I saw the way he was looking at you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Come on. We’d better get home, before Mum calls out a search party or has me make an honest man of you, or something.”

They traipsed back through the now dark trees, across the grass, and into the light of the street. Remus walked Lily home, talking about politics and Thatcher, safe topics in a village like this. They’d left the rest of it in the park, safe, where they could talk about that sort of thing. He exchanged pleasantries at the door with Mr Evans, and a rather more terse Mrs Evans. 

His parents were in their room when he got home, door closed, the room dark. Remus washed up, changed into pyjamas and sat on the floor by his bed, his own light off and the window and curtains open. Outside, the mountains loomed in the moonlight. He’d always found this view, the one he’d had from this bedroom window from his earliest memories, calming. He’d been born in this house, in the other upstairs room. He’d slept in this room since he was six weeks old. He’d planned to move out, one day, yes, but within minutes from his front door right now. Before, before he’d known what he was, he’d planned to meet a woman and get married, like most here did. Have a couple of kids and maybe become a supervisor at the pit, if he could manage it.

Remus had known, for a few years, even, that some of that wouldn’t happen. Gays didn’t marry and have kids. But he’d still get the rest of it. He’d still be able to look at the mountains every day, before he went to bed. And yes, there’d been discussions, in the Institute and on the marches and on the picket, about what’d happen if the Coal Board got their way, if the mine closed, but even then, Remus hadn’t thought too much about the change. He’d do what the rest of them were planning, and get a bus to Port Talbot and the steelworks, maybe, or try and find work at another mine, or Cardiff. There had to be jobs in Cardiff. He was young enough to adapt to it, that’s what the older ones had said. Men his father’s age might not.

He could move to London.

Remus tried to banish that thought from his mind as soon as it got in there. He couldn’t, not really. They needed his wages, or the replacement money from the union, at least. Then again, there were rumours the union funds were running low, that their money would be reduced, and without him here, his parents would be able to put in an unemployment claim of their own. They’d probably be better off, they’d be able to afford the rent if the union ran out of funds, at any rate. And he’d find something else, something that’d even give him something to send back to them, maybe. Hadn’t Sirius said he was clever?

He couldn’t move to London. He couldn’t just leave.

Of course he’d stay.


End file.
